Massive Chalice excites me. This new game excites because it's something familiar, but it's also something new. It makes sense that the game is being created by Double Fine and being funded through Kickstarter.

Double Fine is known for truly unique, quality games like Psychonauts, Brutal Legend, and Stacking. Massive Chalice is the second game Double Fine is hoping to be funded through Kickstarter, and with over $400,000 dollars of the $725,000 already pledged with 27 days left, the project seems to be almost a certainty. Double Fine is planning on releasing the game in September of 2014, which feels like an eternity to wait.

What really excites me is that it looks like Double Fine knows they have a great idea and can't wait to work on it. On the Kickstarter page, Massive Chalice is described as "If turn-based tactics and feudal fantasy had a lovechild, and that offspring founded a mighty century-spanning dynasty." That sounds awesome.

Most of the game will be turn-based strategy a-la X-COM: Enemy Unknown. But where, XCOM focused on a few years of a war against alien invaders, Massive Chalice spans centuries in a battle against demons. Because the game is centuries long instead of a few years, there needs to be some changes to the usual turn-based formula. These changes make things a whole lot more interesting.

The soldiers in your armies age and eventually die and permadeath exists. You can either send your demon-fighting soldiers into battle, or retire them away to spend time with a special lady to make the next generation of soldier. These bloodlines of soldiers look like they may play a huge role throughout the course of the game. If a soldier dies in battle, he leaves behind family gear. If an ancestor of the deceased soldier wears that gear, he receives stat boosts.

As far as I'm aware, that kind of stuff hasn't been done before. It's something that just sounds so interesting. It's been quite a while since I actually was interested in a video game before seeing any gameplay. Most new games nowadays just feel like they're a genre with different features. Massive Chalice feels like an evolution of a genre.

Just as XCOM brought turn-based strategy to consoles in a way that had never been done before, Massive Chalice looks like it could go above and beyond what made that game so great. The development of the game is still very early, but with the great track record Double Fine has in their games, any fan of turn-based strategy games has a lot to be excited for in Massive Chalice.